[Hank] It's the Project for Awesome!

Hello, my name is Hank Green, and I, along with my brother, John Green, with the help of... all of YouTube and some very awesome people in particular, have organized the Project for Awesome, of which this video is a tiny, tiny part. Basically, if you've been hiding under a rock, the Project for Awesome is a day in which YouTubers get the opportunity to talk about their favorite charities, encourage people to donate to those charities, and, you know, have a good time, but also talk about people who are doing good things. And then a cadre of about 10,000 people are going to roam across YouTube, and promote these videos in various ways so that they become the most viewed, most discussed, most talked about, most important videos on YouTube for at least two days.

And then, you know, maybe the next day, the world is a slightly better place. That's the hope, anyway. As part of the Project for Awesome, yesterday afternoon, I called my brother up and I told him to do two things.

One: Put a CD in the microwave for five seconds. Two: Get some steel wool and touch a 9-volt battery to it. This, my friends, is the result. [John] One regulation microwave, one CD — "Bridge to Terabithia" soundtrack; don't know how I got it.

Not sorry to be parting with it; nothing personal, Miley Cyrus. Go! [microwave beeps] [electrical zapping and startled exclamation] Oh! [laughing] I panicked and turned off the camera. [loud scoff] Science smells horrible! Hank, I'm standing here in my kitchen with steel wool and one regulation 9-volt battery.

How does it work, Hank? Is there a fire inside the battery? And how do they get the steel wool; does it involve steel sheep?

I don't know the answer to these questions due to poor scientific education! [Hank] It's true! John Green doesn't understand science! And it's not because he's not a smart guy, it's not because he can't understand that the steel wool is short-circuiting the battery, it's because science education in this country sucks!

Only about 17% of American adults are scientifically literate. And that doesn't give me a lot of hope in our democracy's ability to make the correct decisions when it comes to scientific legislation. And just, in general, I think that the people of the world should know more about science.

But the question is, "How can you and I make a difference?" How can we promote scientific literacy among today's young people, so that tomorrow's old people will know what the frick they're talking about? Well, that's where donorschoose.org comes in. This is an amazing site; it's really cool.

Basically, if you're a teacher, you just submit a little proposal, you say what you want money for, and then if people think that that's a good idea — like if that's a good lesson plan, if people agree that that's something that the kids need — then they give you money and the kids get the stuff they need! So not only does it let you and me help out kids who need better education, but it also encourages teachers to think of good ways to use our money, because we're not gonna give 'em our money unless the idea sounds like a good idea. For example, if a teacher wants to buy 30 copies of "Jurassic Park" because she wants to get the kids excited about genetics, some people might say that Michael Crichton was an idiot and that entire book is a scientific travesty... while others might think that that's a really good way to get kids excited about science.

It's up to you! It's up to you to decide whether or not these teachers are having good ideas! And I've been going through donorschoose.org for, like, half the day, trying to find really inspired science teachers who really need resources that they otherwise couldn't get.

Personally, I had really good science teachers and fairly good scientific equipment, so I feel obligated to try and make sure that other students get the same opportunities that I did. Sometimes you read these teachers' stories and it is just despicable... I mean, you just have to give them money.

And if you give them more than $100, the kids will give you a thank-you card. They'll all sign it, and [becoming mushy] send you a thank-you card. [chuckling to self] That's so cool. [normal voice] Right now, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is running a special, and a bunch of the projects will be met with matched donations, so it only costs 50% as much to do 100% of the good! Thanks, Bill!

DonorsChoose has won all kinds of awards and it is a great place to be spending your charity time and money, so thank you to donorschoose.org, and thank you to everyone who's watching this. Please go to donorschoose.org and search through and consider finding a classroom that you can really, really help out; it doesn't even have to be science; it can be anything, and you can help. And of course, thank you to all the other amazing people participating in Project for Awesome.

John and I will be live on BlogTV all freaking day! There's a link in the sidebar. And we will be doing Project for Awesome-y things.

So we will see you there. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of you working so hard to make this project a success. Thank you... for the awesome.